3 Ways to Improve Your Listening

Are you having a hard time understanding conversations when you do listening exercises or when you speak to a native English speaker? Here are some tips to help you improve your listening skills.

Work on pronunciation.

It’s not the most obvious tip but if you think about it, it makes complete sense. If you imagine a word sounds a certain way in your head and then you hear it pronounced (correctly) in a completely different way, you won’t know what it is you’re hearing. You’ll imagine that you’ve heard a new word, something you don’t know yet. This is often why students listen to a track, feel they don’t understand anything, and then, when they read along, are discouraged because they know every single word in the listening. If you like linguistics, try learning the phonetic alphabet. Google Translate also has an audio clip for words which is useful.

*Watch out with English! There are many different accents which makes this tip a real challenge.

Understand the sense.

Unless you are upper-intermediate to proficient, chances are you will not be able to understand every single word in a conversation. So stop trying to. The important thing at lower levels is to do your best and get the sense of what’s being said. If you focus too much on one word or phrase you will miss everything that comes after it. Think of it like treading water: you have to keep moving or you will sink. Keep your brain moving forward even if you miss parts. Then take the pieces you have and make a guess. You’ll find your guesses get better and better and eventually you won’t have to guess anymore.

Know the names of popular places around you.

This may seem like an odd tip but if you are living in or visiting an English-speaking country it will help you tremendously. Sometimes you’ll feel completely overwhelmed in conversations because you imagine that speakers are saying word after word that you haven’t learned yet when really they’re talking about a grocery store, a nearby town, or a street name. The faster you know local restaurants, buildings, and area names the better. Again, be sure to check on pronunciation for these!

I have ten years’ experience teaching EFL and ESL – from levels A1 to C2.
Though I mainly taught Italian students during my time in Italy (mostly preparing them for CEFR exams including IELTS, Cambridge and TOEFL), I began by teaching ESL in London to mostly Turkish, Bangladeshi and Indian students. Since returning to the UK, I have been teaching CLIL courses to Japanese high school students and General English classes (particularly to Swiss-German groups). I am CELTA qualified, and additionally I have a PGCE in English which involved one year teaching in secondary schools around London. I believe I can thus claim a breadth of experience of different types of students.
Due to my experience of living abroad it’s quite easy for me to sympathise with foreign language learners as they may at times feel out of sorts and embarrassed. I not only know exactly how this feels myself – since I lived abroad for six years – but I often find that these are the students with whom I have the strongest rapport because we have similar interests and life goals.
In my position as a Director of Studies in Italy I had to demonstrate my organisational skills, especially as the role was in addition to my work as a senior teacher, I was responsible for co-ordinating and liaising with other teachers about timetables, materials etc., as well as providing training and feedback. I also have experience writing exams and proofreading CLIL textbooks. I think this demonstrates my breadth of knowledge both about English but also about exam-taking and what is required for that.

Язык обучения

Английский

Происхождение

Соединенное Королевство

Уроки

4

Английский

Родной

,

Итальянский

B2

I have ten years’ experience teaching EFL and ESL – from levels A1 to C2.
Though I mainly taught Italian students during my time in Italy (mostly preparing them for CEFR exams including IELTS, Cambridge and TOEFL), I began by teaching ESL in London to mostly Turkish, Bangladeshi and Indian students. Since returning to the UK, I have been teaching CLIL courses to Japanese high school students and General English classes (particularly to Swiss-German groups). I am CELTA qualified, and additionally I have a PGCE in English which involved one year teaching in secondary schools around London. I believe I can thus claim a breadth of experience of different types of students.
Due to my experience of living abroad it’s quite easy for me to sympathise with foreign language learners as they may at times feel out of sorts and embarrassed. I not only know exactly how this feels myself – since I lived abroad for six years – but I often find that these are the students with whom I have the strongest rapport because we have similar interests and life goals.
In my position as a Director of Studies in Italy I had to demonstrate my organisational skills, especially as the role was in addition to my work as a senior teacher, I was responsible for co-ordinating and liaising with other teachers about timetables, materials etc., as well as providing training and feedback. I also have experience writing exams and proofreading CLIL textbooks. I think this demonstrates my breadth of knowledge both about English but also about exam-taking and what is required for that.